Finally I got to the bottom of the LX modded camera not working. The error it seems was intermittent, so it appeared to work when plugged into my one PC then failed to work when plugged into another.  The fault was a wire had lifted off the board and taken part of the solder pad with it. With the wire being a single strand from a CAT5 cable it was very stiff so on occasion would sit back in the position from which it came.

As soon as I found this I resoldered the joint replacing the stiff wire with a more flexible multi strand type to prevent stress on the joint. This is important as the solder pad is now damaged and there’s not much left to solder the wire onto.

I managed to reassemble the camera without introducing further faults and a quick test showed the issue has been resolved.

The SPC900NC is my best planetary camera as well as being my only LX camera, so now that it’s workingI hope I get a clear night to try for Jupiter again. I had a look at the collimation on my scope last night and adjusted the secodary which appeared to have been a little off centre. I think the last time I adjusted it was during a late session and I must have got it close and left it. The collimating cap I have with a small central hole that fits into the eyepiece holder requires your eye to be placed very near to the hole in order to check for concentric circles in the secondary reflections. As I wear glasses this is not possible and without the glasses I can’t see to the bottom of the telescope tube! Perhaps I should collimate with a camera in the eyepiece holder?

Anyway, I’ll document my next visit to the patio and I’ll let you know if the mirrors are aligned or not.